ALL DIGITAL, coordinator of the CrAL project, is a member of an expert group set up by the European Commission to tackle disinformation and promote digital literacy through education and training in the context of the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027). In this blogpost, we provide an overview of what the group does, ALL DIGITAL’s role in it, and its relevance to projects such as CrAL, which aim to enhance the digital and media literacy of young people through creative methodologies.
The work of the working group kicked off in October 2021 and its main task is to assist the European Commission in preparing common guidelines for teachers and educators to tackle disinformation and promote digital literacy through education and training. These guidelines should help teachers all over Europe to address these topics with their students.
The call for members of this expert group was opened earlier in 2021. Any organization or expert on the topic was free to apply and the final group was selected based on the experts’ interest, experience, and knowledge of the area. ALL DIGITAL is one of the selected organisations. The Expert Group brings together 25 individuals and organisations covering a broad range of expertise, representing the world of broadcast, journalism, technology, civil society, media, teaching, education, and training. All have experience in the fields of tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy, with a focus on education. The full list of members can be found here.
The Expert Group will look at existing practices and approaches in the EU and internationally, and at all levels of education, including both formal and non-formal education settings. The mandate of the Expert Group runs until September 2022 and the group is expected to produce two main outcomes. The first is a report that focuses on the key issues related tackling disinformation and digital literacy in education. This report comes at an early stage (around March 2022) and is intended to feed into the main expected outcome – the guidelines for teachers and educators – expected in September 2022. These guidelines are intended to help teachers and educators to tackle disinformation and promote digital literacy through education and training. They are expected to be written in a manner that is accessible and useful for teachers and educators.
CrAL is an ongoing initiative aimed at promoting media literacy and critical thinking among young people – the main ingredients for increased ability to assess and manage information, distinguish information and disinformation, and form a critical approach to information distributed through digital media. Moreover, CrAL is aimed at preparing teachers to guide young people in this process. Such practices are now being reviewed by the members of the expert group and used as an inspiration for the guidelines for teachers and educators, with CrAL being one of the good practices mentioned in the draft of the first report produced by the expert group, along with other project coordinated by ALL DIGITAL, such as Amelie, Biblio or ICT4TheElderly. The CrAL team is looking forward to the outcomes of the expert group’s work and will follow its updates.
